


Break point

by Trans_Homura



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Edeleth Week (Fire Emblem), F/F, abuse tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trans_Homura/pseuds/Trans_Homura
Summary: Byleth learns her closest ally, is the one she is hunting.  How will she reconcile?





	Break point

Byleth stared forward dumbfounded at what she was seeing. Her student, the leader of her house, her best friend, her lover, was the Flame Emperor. The same man who kidnapped Flyan and associated with the woman who killed her father. _ Did she know Monica would do that? _About a million things were racing through her brain before they were interrupted by the Archbishop. 

"What are you waiting for, kill her! Kill the Emperor!" Byleth tried to raise her hand, but it trembled holding the Sword of the Creator. The weapon that killed the goddess. Every time she attempted to raise it, thoughts of her students held her back. 

_ Ashe, _Byleth thought of the young archer after her first major battle with her students against the western church. 

Byleth didn't often talk to the students of the other houses. They were separate and being only their teacher for a couple months, still needed to bond with her own students before gaining others. Yet hearing that Lord Lonado was leading a rebellion against the Church prompted her to bring along Ashe in hopes that maybe his own son could talk him into surrendering peacefully. Needless to say it didn't work and the sadness that was in his eyes when he shot his father was unlike any Byleth had seen as a mercenary. Hoping to console him, she scheduled a lunch meeting at the library. When she came in, she saw him engaged in a book about a man who fought to end the class system of a fictional land called Tellius. 

"Oh professor, I didn't hear you come in. How are you feeling?" Byleth could hear that despite his best efforts, she could still hear the sadness in his voice. It's one thing to lose your father, another to kill him. She noticed the book he was reading, was one of the most difficult novels in the library. Hardly light reading material. According to Hanneman, Ashe was one of his best students but this, he must have had amazing teachers before being accepted. 

"I'm ok but this is about you, I can't imagine what's going through your mind. What kind of a father was he?" Ashe looked confused at this woman who wasn't even his teacher, asking about a man who tried to attack the church. 

"He truly loved me. Even though I wasn't his, he still wanted me to have the best, every month he would buy me a new book in addition to the work I did at a separate academy. However I always felt that there was this wall, like subconsciously he viewed me as a replacement for his son. The truth, if it meant his son would be alive, I would rather have stayed a street rat."

_ Rhea ordered us to kill his father. _While he did improve after joining the Black Eagles, he still always had this aura of sadness about him. She then turned to Bernadetta, the most timid person Byleth had ever known. Despite being an archer with kills rivaling Shamir, she still had no confidence and barely came out of her room even now. 

Byleth's students were hardly late. In the four months since she started teaching, there were no absences except for one, Bernadetta. She was shy and agoraphobic that much she knew, but this, this was her ninth absence and while her skills were on par with the others, her attendance problems were beginning to be a huge issue since the monastery had a policy of twelve missed classes and then you could be expelled. So of course, Byleth being the caring professor that she was, walked over to the purple haired archer's room. However she was not prepared for what she heard. 

"Dad stop, I'll be a good girl, just stop hitting me!" Bernie screamed. Byleth trying to keep her composure at hearing one of her students having a flashback, knocked. It only took thirty seconds for Bernie to open the door but to Byleth, it felt like a year. 

" Oh professor, sorry you had to hear that. Is there something you needed?". 

"Yes. You have been absent for a few classes and this school is fairly strict attendance wise. I understand though why you missed though." Byleth hugged her small student. "Was that a flashback?" 

"Yes. So before my mom smuggled me here, my father trained me to be a good trophy wife, in order to continue our crest line. If I left dirt on dishes, I got tied to a chair and whipped. If I got a bad grade, whipped. Didn't weed the garden's properly, whipped. This started when I was five and never stopped. I still get flashbacks and can't sleep half the time. 

_ Crests created the system of nobility in Fodlan. Crest bearers are treated as nothing more than prizes. _ Her brain shifted to, _ Lysithea, the first student from the Golden Deer to join my house. _

Byleth never understood the appeal of sweet food. To her eating was simply the method of gaining the nutrients needed to survive. So the idea of food that provides little benefit was an alien concept; yet here she was, bringing a cake to Lysithea. Byleth knocked on her dorm room door when she heard a crashing sound. Turning around she saw Lysithia had fallen down the stairs. After running to examine her, she had suffered lacerations on her head and right arm resulting in heavy bleeding. Casting her basic healing magic, the professor sprinted as fast as she could to Manuela's office, holding the small girl. 

"Thank the Goddess you got her to me as fast as possible, no permanent damage thanks to your first aid. With any luck, she should be up and in fighting condition in a week. But that wasn't even a large drop, how did she get this much damage? I've fallen down those exact stairs and I didn't need this level of magic." 

"Crests, " Lysithea said softly, as she started to arise from her slumber. Byleth smiled after hearing her voice. 

"You're awake, you feel ok?". Byleth asked. 

"My crests did this," Lysithea replied. 

"What do you mean? Last time I checked having a crest doesn't cause bleeding?" 

"No but having two crests does leave her vulnerable," a deep voice explained. 

"Professor Hanneman, what do you mean?" Manuela asked as she finished bandaging her head. 

"I only figured it out recently, but a crest implanted in someone causes an autoimmune response. Her own body is attacking her second crest and it means her heart is being destroyed. Healing magic is helping but I doubt she'll live till 24."

_ It can't be, my own student, dying? _

_Wait, it was the same men who experimented on Edelgard that she worked with right. How does Rhea relate to them?_ Her thoughts ended on that fateful night at the goddess tower, the night she began her relationship with Edelgard. 

Byleth needed a break. Dancing for a girl who never could show emotions was hard enough, but doing it when Edelgard wore the most beautiful dress, that got overwhelming. Said dress was a floor length red gown with with gold embellishments all the length of the skirt. It was topped off by a black cardigan. It made Byleth's simple black chiffon dress feel inadequate. 

"Wow someone's got a crush. What's wrong can't be around your Edie?" Sothis wouldn't stop taunting Byleth over being flustered by Edelgard and despite her protests to the contrary, Sothis still wouldn't accept the fact that Byleth didn't see Edelgard that way. Hoping to get away (or at least as much as possible with a spirit in your head,) she climbed the tower and sat down to look at the stars. 

"You know that will just get that dress dirty professor." Byleth glanced up and saw Edelgard extending her gloved hand. 

"Oh sorry wanted some space, you know social situations and all that," Byleth replied scanning her student's dress. "By the way, why do you wear that cardigan? I mean it looks nice but it seems unusual considering most other students used the sleeves that came with their dresses." Byleth saw Edelgard freeze and tense up. She took some breaths and removed both her gloves and cardigan. Byleth was shocked by her skin. The whole of her arms were covered in deep scars from her shoulders to her hands. Byleth knew the signs from a book on psychology she read to connect better with her students. 

"El, are you cutting?" Byleth asked embracing her favorite student. Edelgard blushed at hearing her nickname but she shook her head. 

"No, I've had these for a long time. Tell me professor have you ever wondered why the imperial line of the largest country in Fodlan only has one heir?" 

"No, I've always just assumed he had fertility problems.". Edelgard shook her head. 

"I had many siblings and each of them were murdered by the group that gave me my crests. I was chained as a child and me and my siblings were experimented on, cut open, one of them even had his kidneys removed. In all, I was the only survivor but I now have two crests so that makes it so fucking better. At that moment, I swore for the sake of my family, to abolish the crest system all that it enables." Byleth stood up and gave her a giant hug. Edelgard blushed at her teacher doing this but inhaled and regained her composure. "I wish to be perfectly honest, that the church never gave the crest bearers special status. If we were all equal, if crests didn't exist, then my siblings would be alive and I could live a normal life. But it had one benefit I suppose."

"What would that be El?" 

"I got to meet the woman I love." At this, she placed a soft kiss on Byleth's left cheek. "Ever since you saved me I thought you were the most amazing person and now I know that it is love."

_ She was the first person to ever love me. But she sided with the people who killed my father, the same people who hurt her and killed her siblings. No, she had to have a reason and whatever that reason is, I intend to follow that through to the end, because I love her. _Byleth took the sword of the Creator, and pointed it towards Rhea. 

**Author's Note:**

> I gave Edelgard a dress cause who didn't want to see her in one.


End file.
